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Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Over the last few days
of thinking about Sunday, a few ideas have settled out of the cloud
of action and emotion that followed my finding her, taking her to the
shelter, and her death.

Take tick-borne
diseases seriously, and 'prevention is better than cure'.

I paid lip-service to
the possibility of one of our animals becoming sick from the
parasites that throng to them during the summer: I bought Frontline
and wormer but did not use them with the precision and care that make
them effective prophylactics. It took looking into Sunday's belly
and seeing how her blood could not clot, making her body unable to
cope with her surgery to make me realise that taking an extra five
minutes to apply Frontline properly really can save a life – or at
least the misery and expense of illness. After Lizzie was spayed,
the vet said something about her having bled heavily internally
possibly because of ticks, but he never emphasised either the
seriousness of the problem or how easy it is to combat.

Lizzie

Sputnik had his tests a
few days ago and recieved the all clear for leishmania and
erlichiosis, and the vet showed me how to clip the hair on his neck
so that the Frontline goes directly on to the skin for full
absorbtion. “Every month,” she said. “You have to put it on
at least every month to be sure that he's covered. And if you see
that it begins to be less effective, switch brands. Our ticks and
fleas sometimes become resistant if you always use the same brand.”

Educate yourself
and ask questions.

I don't blame the vets
at the shelter for Sunday's death: they're busy and rely on others
to obtain the details of the dogs on which they operate. Sunday left
the shelter kennels and went to the clinic for three procedures – a
blood test for leishmania and one full blood screening for other
parasites or problems, and a spay. She was spayed before she was
tested. Had she been tested first, the vets would have been able to
tell that she had a erlichiosis. She would have been treated for a
month and then could have been spayed safely. I didn't know enough
to insist on that. Before your animal goes for a routine procedure,
educate yourself as to what is involved and the potential risks, and
don't be afraid to ask questions or question authority. You can't
know everything, but learn what you can.

Understand your
local shelter's policy.

Cyprus has a serious
animal welfare problem: far too many animals for the number of
available homes. Shelter space is extremely limited, and only one
shelter, Paphiakos, will take in any animal with no questions asked.
The up-side of Paphiakos' policy is that if you find an animal on the
road or in distress, you can count on them to take in without a
quibble. The down-side is that that animal will either be quickly
euthanised or will cost a lot to extricate.

When I found Lizzie, I
took her to the nearest shelter, PAWS. Annie M., whom I had known
for years, initially refused to take her on the grounds of having no
room. She eventually conceded when I told her that I'd lay bets that
I would be back for her within the week. I was, and I took Lizzie
joyfully home after paying a donation of ten cyprus pounds. In the
days that followed, I took her to be spayed and chipped and
vaccinated, and for a few happy weeks, she was a part of the family.
But Annie has gone back to the UK and PAWS is only open for two hours
each morning, so I took Sunday to Paphiakos. When I mentioned that
on a local forum, I took a lot of flak: “any dog, particularly a
hunter, taken to Paphiakos is almost immediately killed” and other
similar comments. I checked with various long-time pet-owners in the
area, and they confirmed this. That's why I decided to try to get
Sunday out and give her a chance.

Sunday, the day before her op.

But once an animal is
in Paphiakos, springing them is not cheap. The website (click on Re-Homing tab) states
clearly that charges for spaying, chipping, vaccinating, parasite
treatment, and municipal license must be met REGARDLESS OF WHAT
TREATMENT HAS BEEN DONE TO THE ANIMAL PRIOR before it can be released
to its new home. In other words, if you want to adopt a dog that has
already been spayed, you will still have to pay the spaying charge
(115-184 Euros); a dog might have been micro-chipped by its former
owner, but you will still have to pay for chipping (34.50). The
management justifies this by saying that it needs to cover all
charges incurred in its countrywide rescue service, and also by
saying that any potential owner needs to understand that having a pet
involves financial commitment, but in reality it means that dogs like
Sunday are priced out of a home. There are few people like Rosie who
would pay her medical bills, sponsor her (90 Euros for six months
minimum) in an attempt to keep her off the notorious PTS (put to
sleep) list, and even be willing to pay her rehoming fee should she
manage to find someone to take her on. The reality for un-chipped
dogs like Sunday, who sometimes come in at a rate of ten per day in
the hunting season, is euthanasia – often well-within the fifteen
days that they are supposed to have as a window for re-homing or
adoption.

Sputnik the day we found him in June 2011.

He settled in quickly...

I understand why this situation exists, but it doesn't make the decision of what to do with the stray animals that I find on my doorstep – and there have been around 15 in the last few years – any easier.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Last Sunday morning, as
Best Beloved, Sputnik, and I walked the field looking at vines and
trees, BB pointed under the fig tree and said "Is that a dog?"

A dog, indeed.
Black, with an amputated tail, she seemed too weak to move at first,
but then crawled out from under the shade and lay at our feet.
Sputnik whined and wiggled with joy. Li'l Bro appeared on his porch.

“I saw her this
morning,” he said. “And she took some water but I didn't want to
go near because she is covered in ticks” He gave me a bucket and I
put some more water in. The black dog drank a little more, then she
and Sputnik wandered slowly away together.

Back at the house, I
woke Sophia. “We have a mission,” I said. “There's a dog in
the field that we must take to the shelter, and I need your help.”

There was no sign of
either dog when, twenty minutes later, we returned to the field in
the Land Rover. We searched the cafe parking lot and Sophia ventured
into the supermarket store room, and suddenly Sputnik and his new
friend came into view. As soon as we opened the back door, Sputnik
leapt inside, but the black dog needed help and as I lifted her in I
got a good look at the hundreds of ticks gorging themselves all over
her.

We arrived at the
shelter and I handed her over. “What will happen to her,” I
asked the lady who had scanned her for a chip. “Will she be put to
sleep?”

“With no chip, she
has fifteen days as long as she's neither sick nor aggressive,”
came the answer. “But hunting dogs like this are very hard to
rehome and she probably won't be claimed or adopted within that
time.”

Sophia and I exchanged
a look. “No way,” I said. “You know that your father does
not like dogs and will not let us have another. Don't even think
about it!”

***

I went back to the
shelter on Monday to try and increase her chances.

“If I pay her to spay
and vaccinate her, will it make her more easily homeable?” I asked
Christine, who has run the shelter since 1994.

“You can pay to have
her spayed, certainly, but whoever homes her still has to pay our
charges,” she answered. “We have to get our money back, and it
says clearly on our website that whoever adopts from here has to pay
for vaccinations, parasite treatment, chipping, and spaying – about
275 Euros in her case.”

“Even if that has
already been paid for that particular dog?”

“Whatever has already
been paid for that particular dog.” It seemed a little steep to
me, and the likelihood of someone paying that much for this dog
seemed very remote.

Then a voice piped up
behind my right shoulder. “What if I pay her medical bills and
sponsor her for six months? Would that give her a chance?”

I turned in surprise
and saw Rosie, a woman of about my age whom I always think of as kind-hearted and spontaneous, with a lot more money than sense. “It
would indeed!” said Christine.

“And if at the end of
that six months, if I can manage, could I take her home myself?”

But that was too much
to ask. “You would have to pay the 275 Euros and 10 Euros for
every day that she has been in the shelter,” Christine responded
promptly.

I did the maths quickly
and reached 2,075 Euros – never mind the cost of bills and
sponsorship – another 290 Euros. "Well done, Paphiakos," I thought.
“You've just priced this dog well out of a home.”

But Rosie was
determined. “I'll find her a home sooner than that,” she said,
filling out the paperwork and handing over her credit card. “Now,”
she said, turning to me. “I'm off to the UK for a fortnight from tomorrow, so you
need to check up on our patient for the next few days while she has
her op and when she goes back to the shelter later. Must fly!”

The lady in charge of
sponsorship turned to me blankly. “Well I never,” she began.
Then: “She didn't give her a name!” But Rosie had gone.

“Sunday,” I said.
“I found her on Sunday, so let's call her that!”

Christine made some
calls to the kennels to confirm that she was still there and I heard
her say: “There's someone here who wants to sponsor her, so take
her of the pts list and send her over in the morning for a full MOT
and a spay.” Turning to me, she said. “Phone tomorrow for an
update, and thank-you very much for your help and interest.”

I called over the next
few days and went to the clinic on Wednesday morning, just before Sunday was due for her operation. She looked so much better! She had
put on some weight, and all the ticks were gone. I took her out for
a walk and she eagerly sniffed though the dust as we walked the
perimeter of the parking lot and ventured into a grove of olive
trees. She was unaccustomed to a lead and kept tripping and tangling her legs and mine. She would lick my hand and wrinkle her nose at me every time I had to crouch to untangle her, clearly thrilled to be out of her cage and receiving some attention. After fifteen minutes, I took her back and gave her a drink.
“She'll be ready to go home on Friday,” the nurse told me.
“Right as rain!”

Back in the parking lot
I dialled BB's number.

“Yes, Manamou,” he
said. “What can I do for you?”

“If you say yes to
this,” I answered. “I promise that I will never ask you for
anything else...”

“Get to the point!”

“You know the dog we
found on Friday...?” I heard his “Oh, no!” before I had even
reached the end of the sentence.

“Please, darling,”
I continued, despising myself for falling back on feminine wiles.
“You know I don't ask for very much, and she won't be a problem --”

“Tomorrow,” he
growled. “I'll tell you when I get back tomorrow.”

I spent the rest of the
day trying to figure out rehoming strategies and spoke with a friend
who has contacts with shelters that rehome strays on the Continent.
I brainstormed with several people linked to the animal welfare world
and we came up with various possibilities to save Sunday without
having to pay too much.

***

The next morning I
called the clinic to find out how she had weathered the surgery and
find out when she would be returning to the kennels. “Just hang
on, Asproulla,” the receptionist said. “The vet needs a word
with you.”

Within a minute, Doctor
Nefeli was on the line. “I'm sorry,” she said, in her gentle
Greek accent. “Your dog didn't make it.” She explained that the
surgery had gone well, but that Sunday had been found dead in the
clinic earlier, and that the post-mortem had shown haemorrhaging from the
sub-cutaneous capillaries and internal bleeding. The ligatures,
Nefeli said, had all held and the surgery had been successful: the
bleeding was probably from erlichiosis, a tick-borne bactirial
infection that attacks the white blood cells and prevents clotting.
“I have her body here,” she said. “So if you want to collect
it you can.”

'I'll bring her home,'
I thought, dialling Rosie's mobile number. She answered on the third ring, confirmed that I
should, and that should I be offered the money back I should use it
to check Sputnik for the same disease, and roll the sponsorship over
onto some other unfortunate animal who might benefit. “Fat chance
of that!” I told her. “You'll get nothing back from Paphiakos!”

But I was wrong. At
the clinic the vets put Sunday's body on the table, her head and
forelimbs covered by a towel. As they opened the incision and showed
the ligatures all in place but the sub-cutaneous layer full of
blood, Christine came in. “What shall we do with Rosie's money,
do you know what she might want?” I explained, and she sniffed,
her eyes beginning to tear. “You'll have me crying now,” she
said. “What a kind woman... Don't worry, I'll find another needy
dog who will benefit. And you bring in your Sputnik to be tested
just as soon as you can.”

One of the vets carried
Sunday to the car and I drove her home. Nick and Stellios, Alex and
Sophia's friends who had been at the house since the early morning
had dug me a beautiful grave up at the top of the upper vinyard, and
as I was getting her body out of the bag, Best Beloved walked up
between the rows of vines and helped me to put her in the hole. I
pulled back the corner of the towel and looked at her face for the
last time, her brown eyes half-open, her tongue slightly out, and I
remembered her as she was on her last walk the day before, eyes laughing, stumpy tail wagging hard enough to move her whole skinny body.

“Bye-bye, sweet
Sunday,” I said, arranging her limbs against the squared off walls.

We shovelled the earth
back in and as we headed back to the house.

***

This experience has
taught me a lot – which I will go into in later posts: this one is
already long enough. For now, though, please, dog owners among my
readers, correct use of Frontline or other anti-tick products is an
easy way to avoid a disease that can kill your animal. I had only
just met Sunday, and losing her was painful out of all proportion to
the length of time I had known her.